KIMBERTON — Coming in from the summer heat, visitors to Camphill Café are cooled off by the building’s geothermal cooling and heating system.

The food they are served is locally grown and often picked that day or the day before.

The food the restaurant disposes of at day’s end is composted.

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The list of sustainability practices the café practices goes on. The way Camphill Café is built and run reflects the community that manages and staffs the eatery.

Camphill Café is part of Camphill Village Kimberton Hills, a sustainable community in which adults with special needs and volunteers without special needs live and work together. Proceeds from the café go to the Kimberton Hills community. Kimberton Hills uses practices that utilize biodynamic agriculture and ecological practices, and it provides educational tours to increase environmental awareness.

Starting July 11, Camphill Café will offer “Pay as You Wish Thursdays.” Patrons are encouraged to pay for their meal with any amount they want, starting at zero. The hope is that those with money to spare will “pay it forward” by helping provide a paid meal for someone who is unable to pay.

“There’s a sense of community felt within the village which (through the café) is extended to those in the outside community,” said Camphill Village Kimberton Hills Director of Development Bernadette Kovaleski.

By growing healthy food and creating an environmentally sustainable community, Kovaleski believes the people who live in Kimberton Hills “are helping the wider world.” What the village gets back is a sense of helping others and feeling like they are contributing to the community. The café is also a way for the village to connect to the external community and allow the public to learn more about who they are and what they do.

“As a nonprofit, to be able to continue the pay it forward (model) completes the circle,” Kovaleski said.

With Pay as You Wish Thursdays, the village will be able to offer assistance to members of the wider community who may not otherwise have access to a healthy meal, or any meal at all.

“If it works for everyone, we’ll continue to do it and maybe even expand it to (include) more days,” Camphill Village Kimberton Hills Executive Director Diedra Heitzman said.

Hilla Haut, the café manager, was inspired to create Pay as You Wish Thursdays after hearing about Karma Kitchen, a restaurant in Berkeley, Calif. The restaurant doesn’t charge any money for its meals — the concept is to encourage patrons to give a donation if they are able to, which can pay for the next person’s meal.

Kovaleski hopes that other cafés and restaurants will be inspired to offer similar deals.

“It’s nice to see people focus less on financial gain and more on a gain within the community,” she said. “The stronger the community is, the stronger your business is.”

Camphill Village Kimberton Hills and the Camphill Café are located at 1601 Pughtown Road in Kimberton. The café is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays.